Harry Potter is Almost Here: 5 Ways To Celebrate the End of an Era

July 14, 2011

As we all know, the release of the final Harry Potter film tonight marks the end of an era. For many children and young adults around the world, this will be an even more dramatic moment than turning eleven and not receiving a Hogwarts acceptance letter. After the jump, we’ve put together a list of the best ways to ring in this post-Voldemort world.

1. Drink Up

What better way to deal with the end of your childhood than to get drunk with a bunch of muggles? “The Group That Shall Not Be Named,” the NYC Harry Potter meetup, is hosting a get together with Flaming Harry Potter Shots at the Barcelona Bar. You have to RSVP to attend the event, but it’s definitely going to be worth it. There are rumors of musical performances and trivia. The bar is opening early just for the TGTSNBN, and they’ll be there from 2:30 to 4:30 this afternoon.

2. Start Studying

The world of witchcraft and wizardry is far more complex than the average Harry Potter fan realizes, and this quiz proves it. Who knows what Gamp’s Law is? Yeah, we didn’t think so. If you want to impress all your neighbors in line tonight, you better start studying up.

3. Hit The Books

There are still eleven hours until midnight. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows is approximately 750 pages long, so if you read about 1.1 pages per minute, you can totally finish the book before midnight. If that’s more than you can handle, you can just read until [SPOILER] Dobby’s death which is around page 475 depending on which edition you have. That would only require you to read .7 pages per minute.

4. Grab Your Broomstick

Yesterday was the official Quidditch tournament, but there’s no reason why you can’t organize a pickup game. Unless you have 14 brooms lying around, you’re gonna have to make your game BYOB (bring your own broom). You can find the rules for “muggle quidditch” here.

5. Break Out The Sewing Kit

There are going to be a ton of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger wannabes at the premiere tonight. If you want to stand out in the crowd, you’d better pick a more obscure character. Some of our favorite options are Luna Lovegood, Mad-Eye Moody, Neville Longbottom, Hagrid, Scabbers, Viktor Krum, or Padma Patil. Just don’t go as Dumbledore, Hedwig, Cedric Diggory, or Dobby — it’s still too soon.